


Practical Experience

by SilverMiko



Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek
Genre: AU prompt, F/M, Rivals to Lovers, Romance, Star Fleet Academy, khanolly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-21 01:12:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12446148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMiko/pseuds/SilverMiko
Summary: Molly Hooper is the most popular person at Star Fleet Academy, and John Harrison really, really hates it. Especially when she knocks him out of place academically when he's so used to being on top. Especially when she's so unfailingly nice. Especially when he can't even successfully hate her, not one bit.





	Practical Experience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreamin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamin/gifts).



> High school most popular/most nerdiest AU prompt written for Dreamin, except by high school I mean Star Fleet Academy. Hope you enjoy!

Molly Hooper was kind-spirited, friendly, of some degree of looks one could say was attractive, of something above average intelligence, and had quickly become the darling of Star Fleet Academy. Practically everyone liked her, except Cadet John Harrison. If Molly had a polar opposite it was him; incredibly book smart, a loner, and an incredibly terse person to be around. If she was the most popular person at the academy, he was by far the least. But that mattered not to him, he was only there really going through the motions. He couldn’t care less about Star Fleet, or fitting in. These were not his people, they were merely sheep. But what he did care about was excellence, being the top mind, and for years he’d blown ahead of everyone academically. 

Until that one bloody stupid xenopathology lab dissection. Until his spot as number one across the board was upheaved and titled by a petite brunette who smiled too much and had always come second in test scores behind him. How dare she usurp him? Oh, and she tried to be so so...nice about it, that it made his teeth hurt.

As he sat alone at the bar and tipped back another sip of whiskey, he recalled earlier in the week after the grades were posted and she had gotten the top mark. She’d had the bloody gall to saunter over him, a polite smile on her face, and try to be jovial.

_ “So, bad lab was it? It’s a rare day I beat you out, Harrison.” _

If looks could have killed, she would have been dead on the spot. Instead of doing the polite thing and responding, he’d brushed right past her and left her awkwardly behind. It was bad enough she’d beaten him, but she had to gloat too?! 

He hated her, truly hated her. The way she barely stood to his shoulders, the way she was undeniably weaker than him yet had expertly ripped open the cadaver’s chest cavity like it was nothing. The way her long ponytail had swished behind her as she worked, scalpel in her small hand. She was so clumsy in every other regard, the way she spoke to him the few times she did, her bad jokes...but in this she had been effortlessly graceful and an artist with a knife.

He absolutely hated it, especially the way he’d found watching her work so compelling.

And so for the rest of the week he avoided her, especially when she kept making attempts to talk to him. What needed to be said? But she kept trying, much to the chagrin of her friend and roommate, Cadet Uhura. Oh, he’d heard Uhura’s words from down the hall as he had swept away yet again from Hooper’s attempts at conversation.

_ “I don’t know why you even bother. That guy is so sour I get heartburn just looking at him.” _

Who cares what anyone thought of him, though? He didn’t care what her roommate thought. He didn’t care what Molly Hooper thought. 

And it was just that it was Friday and little else to do and that’s why he was at the bar, two whiskeys in and nursing a third, mind caught up on his failure and her. So annoyingly on her.

“Excuse me, gin and tonic, please!”

And speak of the five-foot-four devil. As if by some horrible spell she was suddenly next to him at the bar, sliding onto the stool next to him and taking her drink from the bartender. She glanced over to him, a small smile on her face. Her hair was down, cascading around her shoulder and framing her face, making the red of her lips and her black lined eyes stand out more. She’d traded her normal academy uniform or utilitarian trousers and jumpers she always wore for a black skirt and a white top with tiny black bows on it. He’d always considered her some degree of attractive, but tonight she looked especially so. A pretty face with a keen mind. How dangerous.

He looked away, taking a large gulp of his drink.

“Well, of all the gin joints in the world…” she began, but he cut her off.

“Spare me the humor, Hooper, and apply your charms elsewhere,” he grumbled. 

He tried to close off his body language from her, but instead of deterring her she seemed to take a fortifying sip of her drink through the small stirring straw (who drank gin & tonic through a straw, anyway?) and leaned in closer to him, setting her drink closer to his.

“You’re always so...so...surly. Always.”

“Forgive me, Hooper, I don’t see why you should care.”

“And for the smartest person in the whole bloody academy you’re being awfully stupid.”

At this he turned towards her sharply, his face looming closer to hers as his eyes narrowed to cold chips of icy blue-grey.

“Say that again, I dare you.”

“You’re. Being. Awfully. Stupid. You’re a grown man, not a child. Quit throwing this prolonged sulk just because I  _ daaaared _ to beat you the one time at something.”

“First I’m stupid and now a child? Who do you think you are to insult me like this? Knowing you, you probably charmed your way into getting top marks on that dissection. You have everyone else around here wrapped around your finger, why not the instructors too?”

It was a low blow, he knew it, but he didn’t care. Let her be the humiliated one this time. Let her sulk. But of course, Molly Hooper did neither and took the course that he never expected.

He hadn’t even seen her hand coming until it was too late, and felt the sudden smack of her hand against his cheek. He was surprised by both the force of the blow and that she’d had the guts to do it. He supposed his previous assessment of her meekness was incorrect. 

“How dare you?” she whispered, vehemently. “Haven’t I always been kind to you? Tried to be your friend when no one else around here can stand you? You’re so gifted and yet you push everyone away and make sure no one even gives you a chance and it certainly doesn’t seem to make you happy. You always look miserable and when I try to talk to you, you always say such horrible things back.”

She paused and caught her breath, taking a long drink of her cocktail before she continued, somehow even more fired up and he was almost convinced at any minute now her hair would come alive with sparks.

“You want to know how I beat you at the dissection? You’re completely better at me when it comes to the tests, you’re on a whole other level of book smart I can’t even come close to and I’m forever chasing behind you in that regard, but you also seem to be way too above getting your hands dirty. Not once did I see you in the lab outside of class hours practicing and I should know, I spent hours and hours there trying to improve my skills. So why did the great John Harrison get knocked down a peg by silly little Molly Hooper? Because you lack the practical experience I worked my hands to the bone on gaining. You know, the first day we met I was completely awestruck by you in class. You were so bloody brilliant, so whip smart and so commanding of a presence without even opening your mouth that I just had to talk to you. Get to know you. I don’t think anyone has ever drawn me in like that. But you never give anyone, least of all me, a chance. So maybe I’m done caring then since it bothers you so much. Have a nice life, John Harrison.”

She threw some crumpled up cash notes from her purse onto the bar and stood to leave. He should have let her, let her walk right out of the bar and right out of his life for good so he could have peace again. But he couldn’t.

His arm shot up, gripping her upper arm as he stopped her enraged exit and pulling her close.

“You know what the problem with you is, Hooper? You talk too much,” he said, his thumb now brushing against her skin and he could see a flush form on her face. Good, he affected her. He may have been one of the biggest outcasts in the academy, but he also knew his looks were definitely above average. He was, after all, a perfect specimen in mind and body. 

“What are you doing?” she asked sharply as he stood up and towered over her small frame.

“Getting practical experience,” he murmured before leaning down and pressing his mouth against her.

The thing John Harrison hated about Molly Hooper was that he couldn’t truly hate her at all, not one bit. He found it was another area he woefully failed at and always had the past few years. As his lips moved over hers, and she wrapped her arms around him and melted against him, he figured perhaps that was for the best. She was, after all, an attractive woman, near his level of intelligence, brave enough to slap him, and good in a way that made him want to corrupt her just a bit. 

He supposed he couldn’t go through his life alone, and who better a partner for him?

“John,” she whispered against his lips, her brown eyes so large as she stared into his.

“Khan,” he murmured back with a growl as he nipped at her lower lip gently, “My name is Khan.”


End file.
